COMMON SNIPE. 245 



resemble those of the Jack Snipe, but are on an average slightly larger. 

 It is also very difficult to distinguish some eggs of the Common Snipe from 

 certain varieties of those of the Purple Sandpiper. 



The Snipe is very abundant in India during the cold weather, and fre- 

 quents the rice-fields and the swamps in such numbers that as many as a 

 hundred couples have been killed to one gun during the day. It is gene- 

 rally considered wise to walk down wind, for if the bird is missed as it rises, 

 its almost invariable habit of turning round so as to fly up wind gives the 

 guns a second chance of a shot. 



The Common Snipe in breeding-plumage has the general colours of the 

 upper parts brown, glossy black, and huffish chestnut, the principal features 

 being the pale eye-stripes and mesial line on the crown, and four pale lon- 

 gitudinal bands formed by the outer webs of the scapulars and the outer- 

 most feathers of the mantle, which are broadly margined with buff. The 

 quills are broAvn, the secondaries broadly tipped with white ; the tail- 

 feathers are chestnut mottled with black, and have black bases and 

 white tips. The underparts are huffish white, barred with chestnut and 

 brown on the neck, breast, flanks, and axillaries. Bill dark brown, paler at 

 the base and darker at the tip ; legs, feet, and claws brown ; irides hazel. 



Very few species of Plovers or Sandpipers vary much in the plumage of 

 the sexes, but in most of them the difference between summer and winter 

 plumage, and between either of these and young in first plumage, is well 

 marked. The Snipes form an exception to this rule. In the Common 

 Snipe the differences are so slight that they have been overlooked by most 

 writers. In newly moulted birds in both spring and autumn plumage the 

 general colour of the pale portions of the upper parts is pale chestnut-buff, 

 which, before long, fades into the huffish white of the summer and winter 

 plumages. This change in colour still continues on the wing-coverts and 

 the outermost of the innermost secondaries, which are not moulted in spring, 

 the latter frequently losing all their colour and becoming ragged on the 

 edges. Young in first plumage may be detected by the more uniform 

 colour of their upper parts, and by their wing-coverts, which in adults are 

 brown and have broad pale buff tips divided by a dark shaft-streak ; but in 

 the young in first plumage these pale tips are not divided by a shaft-line, and 

 one or more chestnut bars cross each feather parallel to them. The two 

 outer of the four pale streaks on the upper parts formed by the pale borders 

 of the outer webs of the scapulars are narrower and paler than in adults. 

 After the first spring moult the barred wing-coverts still remain, except 

 that occasionally a few of the most worn are replaced by the unbarred 

 feathers of the adult plumage. Young in down are bright chestnut, mottled 

 with black and dusted with white on the upper parts. 



Although the Snipe is subject to so little seasonal changes of plumage, 

 it varies individually in colour to a considerable extent. Examples are 



